“YOU DARE INSULT ME?!” Helic roared, “FIGHT ME, ALENDRICAHL! IN YOUR TRUE FORM! AND YOU!” He turned his head, facing the other Senc-ists, “CONTINUE THE RITUAL!!” He reared back and swiped down at Cahl again. Cahl dodged out of the way, playing something on his panflute and running vertically up the roots.

  I glanced over and saw Katarina running towards the dragon. I hurried after, Encore maintaining pace with me.

  The Senc-ists returned to their chant as Katarina approached Helic’s back leg. She leapt, hitting it with a flying kick and detonating a charge. The impact sent her flipping backwards through the air. If there was damage done to the dragon, I couldn’t see it.

  Cahl ran up to the cage, gripped it, and pulled. He yelled as he did, the black metal burning into his skin and sending small rivulets of smoke drifting upward. He strained, pulling the cage loose with a wet sucking sound and flinging it to the side. He grabbed the orb and leapt.

  Helic’s claw crashed against the heart a moment later. Cahl landed on the beast’s arm and ran along it, upside down, one hand holding the orb and the other performing on the panflute. It was a quick, whimsical melody that caused his feet to glow with green energy as he ran down the black dragon’s arm.

  He leapt from the arm, jumped once off of Helic’s side, flipped, and landed between Katarina and me. He shoved the orb into my hands.

  My vision blurred and flashed as the orb landed in my hand. I saw a city, far larger than Verdantbrook, built on a hill overlooking a vaste plain of scorched grass. The city was tiered, with three massive walls circling each section. Towers reached into the sky, growing progressively taller with each tier.

  The city burned. A chorus of countless screams echoed in my mind.

  The vision blurred, shifted. An elegant structure of flowing silver and emerald. An entire city of glass and sparkling crystal, deep underwater. Figures shifted amongst shadows, separated by rays of light that shone from high above. The water was bubbling, boiling. Muffled screams, burbling sounds of terror.

  My vision shifted again. The tight confines of the worked stone and steel corridor were stifling. Heat radiated from the air in the distance. Echoes of chaos and fear reverberated down the hallway. A gnome turned the corner, sprinting, and tripped over her feet, looking backwards. An abomination of horrifying proportions with the torso of a horse — a gaping mouth lined with needle-sharp teeth at the stomach —ran along the wall on ten spider-like legs. Its skin was a leathery reddish-brown with gray splotches. It leapt upon the gnome as my vision shifted once more.

  I was back in the chamber. Cahl released the orb, pulling Katarina around and shoving us both together.

  “Go. Now. Take the orb back to the Oakenfather’s Embrace below the Adventurer’s Guild. It must be returned to stop the ritual.” Cahl whispered, shoving us both away as Helic’s large claw slammed him into the roots. He slammed down with both claws, three times in rapid succession. A plume of dust and detritus billowed out from the impacts.

  I pulled the scroll out of my inventory, but hesitated.

  The cloud of debris was blown away in a blast of energy. Cahl jumped, strumming rapidly on his lute. Beams of light flashed out, striking the black dragon and sending him reeling backwards.

  Katarina grabbed my shoulder, squeezing it and turning me to look at her.

  “We need to go. Get this to the Guild.” Her eyes danced between mine. They were deep, dark brown.

  “Ryuen,” I said. The scroll fell apart in my hands.

  A vertical line of light appeared next to me, rising seven feet in height before rotating. The doorway appeared with a soft pop. Katarina dragged me through, a firm grip on my upper arm. Encore followed through at our heels.

  I caught one last glimpse of Cahl, who had pulled a small hand drum from somewhere and was thumping away with a steady rhythm, causing the ground to shake as Helic struggled to maintain his footing.

  The door closed. It didn’t feel like two seconds, but it must have been. I looked around.

  We stood within Henrietta’s greenhouse. I smelled smoke and burned flesh. I looked over to Katarina, concern overpowering every other emotion.

  “Oh no! You’re going to fall asleep. Henrietta has a spell over this area…” I saw Encore shaking his head slowly, looking around. His eyes were heavy with sadness.

  “Many years, I watched the woman who called this area home. She was always kind, leaving me snacks. Her magic is gone now.”

  “Gone?” I asked. "But…”

  “Is something burning?” Katarina turned, trying to peer through the building’s glass. It was tinted a light shade of green and we could see nothing aside from vague shapes outside.

  We hurried to the door that led to her backyard, emerged, and bore witness to the remnants of Henrietta’s last stand.

  A semi-circle of charred bodies lay in smoldering heaps around her. Henrietta sat on the ground, leaning against the door to the storage shed she had retrieved Cahl’s package and my cloak from. She looked peaceful. I would have thought her napping, if not for the unnatural angle of her head, which was twisted partially around and lay limply on her shoulder.

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  “Henrietta!” I started to run to her, but Katarina held out a hand and stopped me.

  She was looking to the right, at the small building built along the cliff. Henrietta’s tearoom, where Cahl had conducted the interrogation. The door leading into the tearoom was open, and a large figure shifted within the shadows, stepping through the doorway with deadly grace.

  Moonlight reflected from his feline eyes. Slick, black fur coated his muscular frame. He sipped from one of Henrietta’s tea cups, which looked tiny in his massive, claw-tipped hands. He wore the flowing robes of the Sect, though his had the cut and fit of a martial fighter. His nameplate read Quanhei.

  Quanhei growled, took another sip from the cup, then casually tossed it over the side of the cliff.

  “Lost cubs come seeking a companion? Or perhaps… treasure?” He spoke with a thick, growling voice.

  I glanced from him to Henrietta, then back. He looked over at her, raising his lips in a vicious smile and reaching up to rub one singed whisker between two fingers.

  “She was a… spicy toy, but easy prey. Disappointing, really. I find myself hungering… for more –”. He moved, lowering his center of gravity into a crouch and launching toward us.

  Katarina reacted like a coiled spring, intercepting his attack. He brought a clawed hand down in a vicious downward swipe, which Katarina stepped inside of, grabbing his descending wrist, pivoting, and redirecting his momentum. She threw him to the ground, his back hitting the small protective wall of vegetation Henrietta had cultivated along the edge of the cliff.

  The pantherkin leapt to his feet as I began playing Kinetic Overload and Katarina closed the gap between them. He roared, unleashing a series of swipes that Katarina dodged or redirected with expertly angled placement of her forearms.

  I had seen her mow through crowds of enemies with ease, but this display of martial arts was on another level. I failed at my performance of Kinetic Overload, awestruck by the way she faced down a massive humanoid black panther nearly twice her height and probably triple her weight.

  Focus. Gritting my teeth, I began playing again.

  Quanhei roared with fury as Katarina continued dodging and redirecting his strikes. She pirouetted around another vertically descending claw attack, spun like a top, and dug the heel of her foot into the small of his ribs. The heel impacted with an audible snap, sinking into his ribs a few inches and quieting the roaring panther beastkin, who coughed and stepped back, a hand going to his side.

  Katarina didn’t let up, launching herself back around from the impact, swinging her leg around and advancing, kicking from the other direction. Quenhei saw the movement and smirked through the pain, reaching a hand around and catching her leg as Katarina began to glow a gentle red from the enactment of Kinetic Overload. I had completed the performance at 95%.

  I started performing Radiant Winds.

  Katarina didn’t hesitate, seeing the hand reaching for her leg and threw a jab at the inside of the elbow holding her leg, detonating a charge of explosive energy. Quanhei yowled, releasing her leg, his arm hanging from the destroyed elbow at an odd, fluid angle.

  Katarina’s fist slammed into the side of Quanhei’s face and she detonated another charge. He flew back from the force of the impact, slamming against the wall of Henrietta’s tea room. Katarina spun in the opposite direction, spinning on her artificial limb. She pushed off of it, flying towards the pantherkin as he shoved himself off of the wall and towards her.

  She extended her prosthetic leg out in a flying kick, which Quenhei caught with his good arm. He swung her in a half circle and against the same wall he had just impacted. Her body hit the wall and the building lurched to the side as the wall collapsed.

  Quanhei released the prosthetic leg, grabbing her other leg and pulling her from the collapsing wall. He brought his arm back, preparing to throw her into the damaged structure, which began fully collapsing from the force of the multiple impacts.

  Katarina was bloody, covered in numerous small cuts from being slammed through the wall, but she twisted in his grip, a look of fierce determination in her eyes. My fingers danced along the frets, fingers plucking and strumming the motif. She swung a punch at the arm holding her, but he jerked her to the side and made her miss, slamming her into the wooden structure a second time.

  Her health plummeted in the party screen, dipping down into the red. She screamed. Quanhei maintained his grip, blood oozing from where his claws dug into her skin. The leg had been broken, a shiny bit of bone gleaming in the light of the moon as he held her aloft.

  I finished the motif at 97%, sending the orbs of energy into Katarina’s leg like radiant bullets. She pivoted as the flesh around her leg sealed, positioning her leg to straighten the bone as my weak healing mended the worst of the damage. She snaked a hand out, lightning quick, and yanked an eye out of the pantherkin’s head.

  He screamed, turning and stumbling towards the falling structure. He brought Katarina down, slamming his body into hers, both bodies crashing into the structure, which shifted with a resounding crack as something beneath it broke.

  Time seemed to freeze. A bold indicator flashed over Katarina’s name in the party screen that read Unconscious. The structure, Quanhei, and Katarina all slid from the edge of the cliff.

  My body moved before I could form a conscious thought, sprinting for the edge, flipping the lute behind to hang from its strap, diving amongst a falling field of wooden debris and furniture.

  “Encore!” I screamed, falling. It was low tide and the wave-slick rocks far below shone with moonlight. I saw them both falling. Katarina must have bounced from the impact, she was a few feet from the large pantherkin. He was flailing about as they fell, twisting his body to face the rapidly approaching rocks far below.

  I tried making myself more aerodynamic, aiming myself at Katarina and desperately hoping that – yes! I felt Encore bite the back of my cloak and pump his small wings a few times before releasing and kicking off of my back. It wasn’t a lot of force, but I fell slightly faster, then faster still with the kickoff.

  A splinter of wood hit my right eye, sending a jolt of pain through my body, but I didn’t react. Adrenaline flooded my veins, pulsing, thumping through my ears, a counter-symphony to the roaring wind of the freefall.

  I reached out, closing the gap between us. If I could just… reach her…

  Memories flashed through my mind. Memories of lost friends. Of my lost brother. My screams of defiance, of loss, echoed back from the rapidly approaching stones below.

  I reached for Katarina, only inches away. Less than an inch.

  Wood, glass, and metal broke against the stones below. I was so close. I could feel it. I wouldn’t reach her in time.

  Katarina’s eyes flashed open, darting around in an instant before locking on mine. So close, yet so far. She moved her hand. Less than an inch. A hair’s breadth. Our skin touched.

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